


A Little Bit

by hxcpanda (inkforhumanhands)



Category: Green Day
Genre: Alcohol, Alternate Universe - College/University, Angst, House Party, M/M, Melodrama, Mike is drunk and angry, Minor Original Character(s), POV Mike, Post-Break Up
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-02-25
Updated: 2010-02-25
Packaged: 2021-03-16 04:47:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,040
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29695239
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/inkforhumanhands/pseuds/hxcpanda
Summary: College-era Mike arrives home after a friend's house party drunk and seething. He and Billie Joe had broken up two whole years ago; the least he could do was acknowledge Mike's presence.
Relationships: Billie Joe Armstrong/Mike Dirnt
Kudos: 3





	A Little Bit

**Author's Note:**

> I was going through old files and stumbled upon this story that I wrote 10-11 years ago and figured why not post it! Here you go! As always, comments are appreciated even though this is old.

It was like he was looking out from a TV screen rabid with white noise, and his vision was narrow to begin with, at least that night. He was seeing through thin strips, as if someone told him to look through a slatted window shade, then blocked all of them but one. His eyes focused on the wood of the door, but he was looking for the doorknob. The doorknob wasn’t looking for him, though, and Paul flashed his headlights, impatient, behind him; he wanted to get home.

Mike concentrated a little bit harder. The rattle and hum of Paul’s piece of shit Ford truck behind him in the driveway made him sweat more than the act of opening his front door should make a man sweat. Then again, it was still August, even if a faint chill had crept into the summer breeze of late. Mike shook his head to clear it; his wandering thoughts were distracting him from the doorknob, which he found to be somehow lower than he had expected. He shuffled through his ring of keys to find one marred by the remnants of tape long worn off.

Paul revved his engine, like an asshole, or maybe like a designated driver who couldn’t understand what was taking his friend so long to get in his damn house. Mike shot a glare over his shoulder, but it went wide and missed. He wasn’t too good at precision right now, which might explain why the key kept skirting the slot. What the fuck. Deep breath, quit shaking. He lined it up, and pushed it forward, but it stopped halfway. Come on! He looked over his shoulder again, at Paul’s shivering hunk of metal, willing him to just drive away already and leave him be so he could open the door on his own time.

A brief wave of nausea flowed over him as again, the key didn’t fit the lock. He was fucked. Mike put a hand to the door for balance. He couldn’t even open a fucking door… What kind of pathetic sack of shit… Bile crept into his mouth, and he wanted to blame it for the stinging behind his eyes, but he couldn’t, because he knew it was all the stoic face there in front of him, a face he never wanted to see again if it had to be that way.

* * *

He was late to the party. It was an end of summer, start of classes type deal hosted by Brian, a big guy with a penchant for helping others with their substance abuse. When Mike and Paul found him, he was in his room with the door shut and a bong pressed to his mouth. And beside him on the bed, mixed up in the unmade swarm of bed sheets, was someone with whom he didn’t know where he stood. Was he sleeping with Brian, then? And did it matter if he was? Greeted by Brian in a puff of vapor, but not by Billie Joe, it occurred to him that the unreturned calls were intentional.

* * *

“Hey Mike, what’s going on?” Back on the doorstep, Mike heard the truck door creak shut following Paul’s call to him. Soon afterward, a hand came into contact with his sweatshirt. “Hey buddy, you okay? Need me to open the door for you?”

Paul was using the tone of voice Mike had often thought of as his “big brother” voice, one for smoothing over would-be fights or for guiding someone’s vomit towards a trash can. It was seldom directed at Mike, who prided himself on his ability to be level-headed and (usually) to hold his liquor. Knowing the second, at least, was not his forte tonight, he handed Paul the keys.

Mike waited with bated, sour breath, as Paul, too, was greeted by an uncooperative lock. He was about to yell triumphantly, “See!” when Paul turned the key over in the opposite direction, a solution that had eluded him in its simplicity. The door clicked open and Paul placed the keys back in Mike’s hand, and then, laughing, headed back to his truck. Mike felt a warmth spill up into his cheeks only once he’d made it inside; even his embarrassment was lagging.

He shook off his sneakers clumsily, and then stood stock still, weathering another bout of queasiness before stumbling to his room. He left the light off and fell face down into his pillow, where he was sure sleep would fold him into her dark, welcoming arms. But sleep didn’t come, and as he rolled face up to stare at the faint outline of where the ceiling met the wall in the pitch blackness, he was torn up by a memory he’d left off near another bed.

* * *

Mike stared, easy confidence lost. What to do next was a question of silence. It wasn’t a question of what to say to him, or how to say what he wanted to say, but a question of whether or not words should exist between them at all. For now, his mouth drying out and his head dizzy despite the fact he hadn’t started drinking yet, Mike would follow Billie Joe’s lead and shut the fuck up. But silence is hard, and Mike dragged Paul away to find the booze.

Having left the secluded room behind, they walked into the thunder of the booming stereo. Mike stopped to talk to someone he used to know, one of many at the party with whom he hadn’t kept in touch after heading off to college. The conversation was bland, and he excused himself to grab a cup and some punch. He filled it high, and the next one too. He needed a buffer if Billie Joe were to emerge.

* * *

Mike’s hands balled into fists as his memory sped up.

* * *

Each time he encountered Billie Joe, they didn’t speak to each other. Billie Joe laughing with Paul. Holding a group conversation with the same people, but infuriatingly never together.

* * *

Mike flipped back onto his side, shaking with a quiet rage. The more he pictured him seemingly unaffected by their lack of interaction, the more he wanted a fucking answer.

Mike swore quietly to himself as he racked his brains for anything he might have done. Nope, the last thing he did that Billie Joe could take issue with was breaking up with him two years ago.

Two years ago.

“I’m sorry, but fucking really?” Mike shouted, sitting up so fast the blood that wasn’t already storming his face clouded his vision. A flurry of passionate resentment spurred his movement to the computer. If he wouldn’t fucking pick up the phone, he would see this email and he would know… He would know that Mike was hurt, a little bit.

The laptop sent forth a blue glow, just enough light to erase the colors of things and cast thousands of separate shadows. Mike blinked back tears of anger, as many different beginnings to the email flitting through his mind as there were new shadows in the room. He brought up the web page, and rested his fingers on the keyboard, trying to decide on a tone. The alcohol surging through his veins thought he should try out surrealism. He had never been a poet. That was more Billie Joe’s strong suit, but something urged him to try.

He began, and it was almost like he was trying not to make sense:

> I’m a snake anxious to shed my skin. Or maybe I’m the skin already shed, straining forward anyway without a body to escape. Crunchy, delicate, translucent scales, each one missing you. I am a coward, and an empty coward at that.
> 
> But you knew that, cherry red Solo cup encompassing your nose, a shield against Eskimo kisses. Not that we’d done that in a while. Perhaps that was the point. I think the point was a shield; were you a shield? Did you shield yourself against me? That was proof you needed to, wasn’t it? You wish I were gone.
> 
> I swear I looked at that patch of floor, and I looked at that patch of floor, and I looked at that patch of floor. Your feet weren’t anywhere. Where did you come from, so bright? If I had more of my wits about me, I’d look up from your anchor, but now I only see your dirty shoes. Clean the fucking laces, will you? I see the tentacles of a mop. You’re a piece of shit, you know that?
> 
> Then there’s a pulsing, and a nodding, and there was always a pulsing but someone suggests a trip down to the keg in the basement. I take myself and my cup out of there, away from you. We hadn’t said hi. I don’t know why, but maybe you do since I take my cues from you. I’m a little bit angry. A little bit sullen. A little bit full of drunken indignation. Why don’t you acknowledge me? I gave you your life; you told me you loved me. And then I told you I didn’t anymore.

Mike stopped typing and leaned forward into his hand. This was fucking stupid. He had to delete it. He didn’t like how it made him feel a little bit guilty, like he could have done something—shaken Billie Joe by the shoulders and yelled in his face about friendship. No, he needed something more rational, and preferably accusatory as well. Less self-deprecating, maybe.

He swallowed. He couldn’t work out why his anger was pulling away from his target and reflecting back onto himself. Yeah, sure, he could have talked to Billie, but… But that probably would have been all the more humiliating. As for the business at hand, well, he tried it again.

> Hey,  
>  So...I realized that you didn't respond to the last three or so emails I sent you since last October, but I chose to give you the benefit of a doubt and think that you were just busy. Anyway, I don't know what I did to upset you and have you totally cast me out of your life since I thought we were on good terms before, but I guess after Brian's party I know that you actually are avoiding me. (Are you? Or was I too chicken to strike up a conversation?) Which is cool, I suppose, even though I will miss you and have been missing you all summer. In any case, I wanted to say sorry for whatever terrible thing it is that I did, although it would maybe be helpful if you told me. For future reference, I would like you to explicitly tell me when you decide you're going to hate me. It helps to avoid confusion.

Passive aggression at its finest. Reading it over, Mike felt a little bit remorseful. Good terms…good terms… As if they had ever been on good terms since the breakup. He’d tried. Billie Joe had tried. But there was too much history. If there was one thing he had picked up from his mom, it was that great relationships are forged from strong friendship, and his and Billie’s bond was the all or nothing kind. Back then it was all, and now it was nothing.

He read it again, though the words blurred from time to time through the distortion of a tear. His chest ached as he typed a postscript to qualify his anger.

> P.S. I am still thoroughly wasted, which is probably an explanation for the audacity of this email.

Maybe that just made it worse.

> P.P.S. Maybe I don't actually want an answer to this email. I don't want to bleed.

Melodramatic.

> P.P.P.S. I don't want to act frostily toward you when we cross paths.

The cursor hovered above the send button. And then before he could stop it, it made a run for the X to close out the browser. Mike trembled, unable to decide whether he had just made or avoided a mistake. Whatever it was, the yawn currently stretching his mouth to its limits convinced him to worry about it in the morning. And so he went to bed, like many nights before, still a little bit lonely.

**Author's Note:**

> LOL remember when people sent each other emails instead of texts??


End file.
